Nothing is going right for the KKR. For once they posted a good total, their highest in this IPL and they had to end up on the losing side. KKR again started badly losing Dada and Ghosh under 6 overs and just 21 runs on the board. That brought Mccullum and David Hussey together. Hussey was playing his first match and didnt look rusty at all. But the star of the innings was Mccullum who finally managed to get something going for him. He was striking the ball sweetly and along with Hussey got the knight riders past 100 in the 10th over. But Hussey got out for a quick fire 43 of 27 but Mccullum was going great guns and he stayed there till the end to give knight riders a perfect score to defend.

Royal Challengers again had a new opening pair in Kallis and Ryder and they got them of to a good start by posting 50 in the 8th over. But then 3 quick wickets in the form of Kallis Ryder and Uthappa jolted the challengers chase.Taylor and Dravid came together and Dravid got out for 12 to the mystery man Mendis who was the only bowler who went for under 6 runs in his overs. Taylor was on 5th gear right from the start and there was hardly any ball where he defended. A score of 175 was never going to be easy to chase but Taylors blitzkrieg 81 came of just 33 balls and contained seven hits to the fence and five huge ones over it, and was arguably the most aggressive innings in this year’s competition. ClickHere for the scorecard.

Man of the Match : Taylor

The second Match was between Kings 11 and Mumbai Indians. Kings 11 batted first. Their innings started disastrously with Katich going for a golden duck and then miscommunication between Pathan and Sohal meant that one more batsmen went without scoring a run and this time it was Pathan. The fall of wickets didn’t have any impact on Sohal who was going great guns and depositing the ball regularly to the boundary. Thanks to him the Kings 11 went past 50 in just 5 overs. Then came the crucial moment. Sangakkara pushed the ball towards extra cover, where Tendulkar misfielded, Sohal took a few paces down the track and was tardy getting back, Tendulkar’s direct hit catching him short and that meant an end to a wonderful innings. Sangakkara was beautifully bowled by Harbhajan. They ended up with 70/4 in 10 overs and what followed was disastrous for the Kings. They lost 3 wickets including that of Yuvraj for just 20 runs in 5 overs. The innings finally folded up at 119 which included 12 wides.

Was this going to be a repeat of the first match between these two teams when Kings 11 had scored an identical score in their first match and defeated them or were Mumbai Indians going to get across the line? The innings started of badly as usual with Jayasurya going for his trademark pull but didn’t time it well and was caught. The Kings were tight in the initial overs with the Mumbai Indians scoring just 18 of the 4 overs. Then a bowling change got them going. Bravo scored 21 runs of Sreesanth which included 2 hits to the boundary and 2 into the crowd. Sachin didn’t open the innings with Jayasurya and it was working well for the Mumbai Indians. A bowling change again resulted in a wicket with Chawla removing Rahane for 1. That brought Sachin to the crease. Yuvraj brought himself on seeing Sreesanth getting smacked in his first over and bowled a pretty decent first over but his 2nd over went for runs when Bravo got to his 50 of just 35 balls and Mumbai’s score was 62/2 after 9. Piyush Chawla bowled an excellent over and yet went for 12 runs. He went past the edge twice in that over. 10 overs and Mumbai were well on course to earn a well deserved victory. They reached 100 in their 13th over with a huge six from Sachin of Chawla. Mumbai Indians cruised to victory with 22 balls to spare and 8 wickets in hand. ClickHere for the scorecard.